BELIZE CITY, Tues. Jan. 2, 2018– With less than two hours remaining in 2017, there was a murder recorded on Belize City’s southside.

This murder pushed the homicide count for last year to 145, which matches figures from 2012—the year that had been dubbed one of the bloodiest in Belizean history.

Fredrick “Tall Order” Smith, 22, was shot dead sometime after 10 o’clock on Sunday, December 31. When officers arrived on the scene they saw him lying face-up in a drain on Antelope Street Extension.
He had been shot once in the upper back.

According to Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Alejandro Cowo, one person has been detained pending investigation.

Today, Amandala spoke with one of Smith’s uncles who recollected that Smith was not a troublesome person.

Smith, he revealed, was a committed family man who had worked part-time with the Belize Electricity Limited. Today, he was to have returned to work.

“He is a person that does not really get into problems like that, you know.  He rather, you know, stay home with his woman. That’s how he lived fi he life,” said his uncle.

During our interview with Smith’s distraught uncle, we asked if this murder had been expected.

He responded, “Well, eena life yu have to expect anything too, yoh know. Yu can’t just seh dat this won’t happen, or dat won’t happen, yoh andastand.  Yu fu always got yoh mind that, yoh know, anything could happen, especially eena this life weh di happen, yoh andastand. “

He continued, “Eena dis society weh we di live, eena right now, all kinda craziness di happen so yoh fi always be vigilant and expect the unexpected.”

Police have not yet revealed a motive for the murder of Smith.  His uncle who was interviewed by Amandala was also unable to say why his nephew was gunned down. He explained, “I can’t really seh pertaining that right, cause like what I said, I noh really know.  Everybody live dehn own life and thing.  Everybody haftu give account ah dehnself, right.”

Smith leaves behind a three-year-old daughter.

In 2015, he was one of two men arraigned for the armed robbery at M and M’s Engineering, on the Philip Goldson Highway, in which robbers made off with twenty thousand dollars in cash and cheques.